Václav Cigler)
Design – Profiles – Key Figures edition series
Václav Cigler (* 1929), artist and designer of word renown, famous above all for his pioneering optical glass sculptures. He was a technological visionary who also applies his ideas to utility glass design, lighting systems, jewellery and pneumatic structures. This book is the first publication to provide period context to Cigler’s works. The book places special emphasis on drawing as the key technique for understanding Cigler’s multifaceted oeuvre.Czech Cubism)
A Guide to the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague
The book devoted to Czech Cubism guides readers through the individual thematic sections of the exhibition on display in the House at the Black Madonna – Prague’s first building in the Cubist style. The key themes – including “The Group of Fine Artists”, “The Cubist interior and furniture design” and “The oblique plane and the crystal”, to name a few – explore relationships between the fine arts, architecture and interior design. The essays are complemented by reproductions illustrating furniture, ceramics, glass and metal objects, ornamental tapestry patterns, posters and prints from the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Moravian Gallery in Brno and the National Museum. The ntegration of the fine and applied arts in the Cubist period is documented through paintings and sculptures on loan from the National Gallery in Prague, the Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen and a private collection. The foremost figures of Czech Cubism, among them Josef Gočár, Vlastislav Hofman, Pavel Janák, Otto Gutfreund, Emil Filla, Josef Čapek, Bohumil Kubišta, Václav Špála and others, are briefly introduced in “Profiles of artists and theoreticians”. The “Timeline” presents the main events of the second decade of the 20th century that formed a backdrop to the artistic milieu of the Cubists, their fans and their critics.
Eva Eisler)
Design – Profiles – Key Figures series
Eva Eisler (b. 1952) earned her international reputation as a jewellery designer. Her works are imbued with architectural visions and multifarious concepts. While Eva Eisler’s realizations in the fields of interior and exhibition design, and fine art gradually gained importance from the 1990s, her first public presentations had already taken place in the early seventies in Czechoslovakia. Her mature creative output is connected with her life in the United States, where the artist moved to in 1983, together with her life partner, architect John Eisler. From 2000, both are also working again in the Czech Republic. The monograph explores the artist’s work throughout her creative career and in its broad typological range. Emphasis is placed on her jewellery design of the second half of the seventies and the eighties when Eva Eisler formulated the fundamental stylistic and formal concepts of her artwork. In the United States, the artist is regarded as a representative of European art jewellery traditions, while in the Czech Republic she is perceived as a messenger of the American artistic approach. However, what matters more than the provenance of her creations is their superb quality and distinctive originality.